


Kanpai

by Comatosejoy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Cute, Drinking, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Oneshot, Post-Chuunin Exams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23624932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comatosejoy/pseuds/Comatosejoy
Summary: Sweet ficlet taking place after the group finds out that they've passes the chuunin exams. Meant to be fun and sweet.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Kanpai

Celebrating had been Ino’s idea, and therefore Ino was responsible for procuring the alcohol. Truthfully, it shouldn’t have been hard. She was a shinobi, after all. She’d complicated things for herself in the name of showing off, creating unnecessary obstacles for the sheer drama, to see Sakura seathe at the pure boldness of her illicit actions. 

“Why didn’t you just have one of my chunin buddies buy it for you?” Shikamaru asked, yawning. He could think of five right off the top of his head who were so desperate for the attention of a kunoichi, _any_ kunoichi, that they wouldn’t have even asked for her to pay them back. 

“Oh, so you don’t want any?” she teased, withholding a glass from him. 

“I didn’t say that,” he said, watching her pour sake into each cup. 

She had gone into a corner store during a slow time, when the shopkeeper was in the back. She’d been careful not to ring the bell on the door. She filled her arms with bottles, far more than they needed, and walked to the register, similar to the one she was accustomed to using in the flower shop, and rang herself out silently while her crowd of friends watched her through the glass. She paid in cash, counted out her change, and bagged her items. She placed a bill in the tip jar, causing Sakura to giggle from her position on the street. The shopkeeper opened the door of the employee-only section and made his way back to the register. Ino continued to sneak around him, making a show about how heavy her bags were, jokingly knocking over items on shelves before catching them, and finally worked her way out the door. Once again, she made sure to keep the bell silent. They had all learned the news that they had indeed passed the chunin exams, and what better way to prove how worthy she was of the title than to pull off such a ridiculous mission? 

“I thought it was awesome,” Kiba said, holding his cup out to make Ino’s job easier. 

“These are just the kind of antics we must get up to, being in the prime of our youth,” Lee said, and Ino filled his cup. Neji, sitting beside Lee, quickly and discreetly dumped Lee’s entire drink into the houseplant. He wasn’t going to wrestle him to the ground in poor Ino’s destroyed home. It didn’t matter that he’d just become a jonin and by all rights was qualified to do it. 

Sakura and Tenten were the first to drink, looking at each other with a quick and resolved _kanpai_. Sakura’s cheeks were immediately a deeper rose than her hair. 

“Does not taste very good,” she breathed out, and Ino refilled her cup. 

Kiba, not to be outdone, finished his drink as well. Lee went to down his own to discover it empty. Surprised, he looked at Neji, who sipped his slowly and thoughtfully without meeting the gaze of his teammate. 

“You can have mine,” Hinata said to Lee, having noticed his predicament. “I wasn’t going to drink it anyway.” 

“Hinata, thank you!” Lee answered. 

“Oh, don’t reach, Lady Hinata. Allow me,” said Neji, who stood to grab the drink and poured it, for the second time, into the houseplant. 

“You’re going to kill my plant,” Ino said, finally slamming her drink. “And we Yamanakas take killing plants very seriously.” 

“My apologies,” Neji answered. Lee’s mouth was open, disbelieving that his teammate was purposely excluding him. 

After hours of drinking, and Lee, the unstoppable force, trying to convince Neji, the immovable object, to let him drink, most of the new chunin had passed out. Sakura leaned her head on Ino’s shoulder. 

“Do you think we’ll always be happy like this?” Sakura asked. Her words ran together and her eyes were straining to stay open. 

“No, we’re missing two of our boys,” she answered, leaning her head on Sakura’s. “And maybe we’ll have more friends in the future. Maybe we’re missing people we don’t even know yet.” 

Sakura doesn’t answer and Ino realizes that she, too, had fallen asleep. She listens to her best friend’s deep breathing and smiles.


End file.
